LJUBLJANA: American International Gro-up Inc ( AIG) Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe's debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept that people will have to work more years as life expectancies increase.

"Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old," Benmosche, who turned 68 last week, said during a weekend interview at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. "That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth."

The crisis, now in its third year, threatens to destroy Europe's 17-nation currency union as Greece contemplates exiting the euro and Spain sees its bond yields rise and banking industry falter. German Chancellor Angela Merkel hardened her opposition to joint debt sharing in the euro region as US President Barack Obama singled out Europe's leaders for not doing enough to arrest the crisis.

Greece abandoning the euro could be a disaster for the country and Europe must work to keep that from happening, said Benmosche, whose company was the world's biggest insurer before it took a US bailout.

"People in Greece have to see there is no easy way out of this" and the government must get them to work longer, he said. "If not, and if they go to their own currency, I think they will see huge inflation and it will be devastating for people on fixed incomes."

Greece, where the average life expectancy is 81.3 years, has an effective retirement age of 59.6, among the lowest in Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. French President Francois Hollande, the Socialist who was sworn in last month, has pledged to cut the retirement age to 60 from 62 while increasing corporate and bank taxes and introducing a 75% levy on earnings of more than 1 million euros ($1.2 million).

Benmosche said people and businesses in the U.S. lack confidence and are hesitant to invest as financial regulation and tax policies remain unsettled.

Antone here who thinks that we have to work to death while paying substantial taxes and/or fees all our lives into a Social Security net that does not pay anything at all back until well after the life expectancy of the average male is an apologist for forced slavery.

And no conservative at all. - If you want to eliminate the system itself, fine, but don’t steal money from me at the point of a gun and tell me its okay.

8
posted on 06/04/2012 6:36:43 PM PDT
by bill1952
(Choice is an illusion created between those with power - and those without)

Nothing wrong wioth retiring at 80, my dad did it on his 80th birthday.

More power and freedom to the ones who can and want to. A lot depends on the nature of the job. Some jobs are killers that prematurely age people. Working those jobs beyond a certain age is a sure death sentence and often the older worker is physically unable to be productive in that sort of work.

And so is capitalism and republican government. If the middle class is reduced to a lifetime of hopeless toil with no future, the republic and capitalism, along with America's current place in the world, will also go out the door with the hope of retirement.

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